Money Changes Everything

Through the mid-'90s, among the group's missions was forging a settlement of the city's long-running school-desegregation case -- which obviously marched right over them. The case recently turned 25 and has no end in sight ["The Long Walk Home," May 23].

By the turn of the millennium, the Civic Council was home to a new generation of men who'd made their fortunes through the area's wealthiest corporations -- white dudes like William "Bill" Berkley, president of his great-grandfather's company, Tension Envelope, and Richard C. Green Jr., top guy at Aquila, which used to be Utilicorp, which used to be Missouri Public Service Company (which used to be the Green Light and Power Company).

There were new names, too. In early 2000, the Civic Council's top man was Thomas A. McDonnell, president and CEO of DST Systems Inc., a software company with a real estate division that has revamped scores of buildings and parcels around downtown. So it was no surprise that, under his direction, the Civic Council cast its eye toward downtown.

Its members formed a subcommittee -- headed by Paul Copaken, head of a Kansas development firm with a historically strong downtown interest -- and hired Massachusetts-based planning consultants to devise a strategy for the blight-ridden loop's rebirth. That firm, Sasaki Associates, was no stranger to Kansas City. It had helped design the successful Ilus Davis Park, sandwiched between City Hall and the new federal courthouse, and the less-successful Berkley Riverfront Park, a stretch of grass and sidewalk that's isolated from just about everything.

A year later came the Sasaki Plan -- a thin, spiral-bound volume full of snazzy maps and photos of buildings and streetscapes that scream "potential."

The maps landed on the front page of the Star, of course, and they were pretty. But it was hard for most Kansas Citians to take them seriously. Just about every ten years since World War II, some group of politicians or businesspeople has offered a scheme to save downtown. In the end, these fantasies have never come true [C.J. Janovy's "Future Schlock," June 7, 2001].

Mayor Barnes loved the plan. What mayor wouldn't? Despite rampant cynicism, pretty much everyone in Kansas City wants downtown to come back to life. The mayor who can make it happen is assured a legacy.

Besides, the plan came from the Civic Council, home of many sugar daddies -- the kind of campaign contributors who show up at fund-raisers with checks for the maximum spending limit from themselves, their companies and, sometimes, their wives. Sometimes they even bend the rules and give more than the law allows -- after all, state officials only make candidates return the overage if someone complains.

When the mayor ran for office, Civic Council members were good for thousands. On December 29, 1998, Barnes received two checks, each for $1,075 (the maximum spending limit), from McDonnell and from his company, DST. The next year she received $2,000 (almost twice the legal limit) from McDonnell himself. McDonnell's wife, Jean, gave Barnes money, too. Richard and Robert Green of Aquila each chipped in $2,000. (Barnes gave some of Robert's money back.) Paul Copaken gave her $2,000 in 1999. Other Barnes-funding Civic Council members included Drue Jennings of Kansas City Power and Light, Terrance Dunn (and a slew of other Dunns) from J.E. Dunn Construction, Jeffrey Comment of Helzberg Diamonds (plus a couple Helzbergs), Donald Hall of Hallmark and, just for old time's sake, Bert Berkley (who by then was no longer on the Civic Council's board of directors).

A few months later, Kansas Citians unfolded their morning papers and read the banner headline "Mayor maps $1.8 billion blueprint for KC's future."

Barnes had slipped into the Sasaki Plan like Luke Skywalker into a sacred Jedi cloak.

Her "blueprint" focused heavily on the asphalt lunar slumscape that spreads east from Municipal Auditorium, the Power & Light Building and the proposed new performing-arts center. She dubbed the district "SoLo" -- urbane parlance for South Loop.

To carry out the dream, she proposed a new state law that would allow cities to borrow against future state taxes to help pay for developments. She called this "new money."

To direct the spending of this money, she proposed adding a new quasi-public body to the city's lengthy list of boards and commissions that have power over public funds. This particular idea was lifted from the Sasaki plan, which called for an empowered group of decision-makers known as a "downtown entity."

In mid-December, around the same time city officials announced they'd discovered a possible extra $35 million, Barnes started putting together her "downtown entity" and the new state law that would give them money to play with.

By mid-January, she had announced the formation of the Greater Downtown Development Authority -- a body of thirteen members and thirteen alternates, many of whom are intimately involved with downtown development. She named as her cochair Tom McDonnell, the DST executive with downtown interests who had led the Civic Council when downtown became its top priority.

She also invited Warren Erdman of Kansas City Southern Industries, which was the parent company of DST (and a major contributor to Barnes' campaign). And she called on Jerry Riffel, attorney for the envisioned performing-arts center. (He gave Barnes money, too.) And she didn't forget Commerce Bank chairman Jonathan Kemper (yup, gave money to Barnes), whose institution owns the massive downtown landlord known as Tower Properties [Casey Logan's "It Only Takes a Spark," January 3].